PONE-D-21-21600

The mediating effect of platform width on the size and shape of stone flakes

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lin,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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All comments need to be addressed before re-submission.

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This article continues a line of research that explores the interrelationship between various morphological traits in flake assemblages. The initial goal of this line of research was to find a set of variables that would determine the size of flake removals, thus allowing for the determination of the size of a flake before retouch to be determined. This study adds to the growing evidence that such a direct correlation is not possible as fracture involves multiple factors that interact in a complex fashion. In recent years studies of correlations of technological attributes are increasingly used as a means of developing and testing models of fracture propagation in brittle materials. This project presents an interesting new model that incorporates platform width as an important variable. My bias is that I would question the overall approach of using such correlations to investigate the process of brittle fracture which is a well developed branch of physics. But my qualms aside, this is a well-developed approach and the current article makes a significant contribution. In my recommendation for revisions I recommend to the authors to clarify the structure of their research more clearly. I would suggest that they first clearly delineate their model for fracture mechanics and then directly link this to the hypotheses that lead to the analysis. All of this material is currently in the paper but it is not clearly flagged for the reader to follow. The model of fracture dynamics are in a sense the most significant part of the paper so this should be highlighted. Similarly the hypotheses to be tested should be clearly delineated, and I was particularly confused on line 273 when we seemingly are told a new hypothesis that was going to be tested. Also, why do we wait to near the end of the paper to get a section on 'a new model'-- shouldn't this be up front as the model is not derived from the data but rather is the source of the hypotheses that are tested?

Methodologically the use of mediation analysis is key and I lack the expertise to evaluate the statistical analysis itself. However, there does need to be an explanation of why the authors do not use a statistical method used normally by physicists studying fracture mechanics. From the text it appears that this is a social sciences method and it is really unclear why it is being used in a materials science analysis. There needs to be a clear discussion of alternative statistical approaches available for study fracture mechanics and why mediation analysis was chosen as most appropriate.

I would add a few minor editorial points:

Line 67-69—seems a great overstatement to say that lithic manufacture has become synonymous with lithic technology and the role of replicative studies is exaggerated.

Line 77—not clear what platform setting refers to

Line 84-87—Again seems to be an exaggeration, makes it sound that shifts in EPA or PD control flake morphology independent of other factors. Thus in line 96-100 the authors contradict their earlier statement.

Line 143—Arrangement is the wrong word here

Reviewer #2: Lin et al. provide a well written and argued analysis of the role of platform width in the platform-flake relationship during knapping. Much attention has been devoted to platform attributes over the years, but platform width has only received passing mention. It is thus useful to see an exploration of the role platform width plays. The experimental methods and hypotheses were well chosen and explained, as was the role of mediator variables in understanding dependent/independent variables.

My only concern with the methods is a minor one, relating to the statistical tests chosen. The PW-PD ratios appear non-normally distributed (especially in fig8), for which parametric tests like ANOVA and Tukey are ill suited. It is likely that a Wilcoxon rank-sum test and post-hoc Kruskal-Wallis tests are more appropriate. I could be wrong, and maybe the data is parametric, but perhaps a brief mention that you tested the parametric criteria would be helpful.

While the implications of this study are discussed briefly in the intro and discussion, some more mention could be made of the broader significance of understanding platform-flake relationships. At the moment, it appears only relevant to others interested in fracture mechanics and the platform-flake relationship. For broader lithic/archaeological audiences it would be useful to explain the significance of understanding these relationships. What behavioral information does it provide? Can we draw conclusions about technological organization? Does the control of the flaking process by the knapper have cognitive/skill/behavioral implications etc.? A few sentences could help make this manuscript applicable to a broader audience.

L68: ‘very much’ can be deleted or replaced with something like ‘considerably’

L331: ‘casual’ should be ‘causal’, you may want to do a find and replace, Word may have autocorrected this a few times.

None of these comments detract substantively from the authors’ arguments and are only minor revisions. I highly recommend its publication in PLoS ONE. Thank you for the opportunity to review such an interesting article.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-21-21600R1The mediating effect of platform width on the size and shape of stone flakesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lin,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 24 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Peter F. Biehl, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

All comments raised by reviewer 1 need to be addressed before the manuscript can be accepted.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have made minimal editorial changes to the text but have done little to address fundamental concerns with this article. I should note up front that I am not familiar with the specific statistical method used here and I found the authors’ explanation difficult to follow. This limitation should be kept in mind when assessing my review.

The fundamental issue with this paper is that it claims to be finding causal relationships between variables based on correlations. Thus the authors argue that they are making fundamental observations about fracture mechanics while not relying on any methods from the study of fracture mechanics. In fact they seem to imply that understanding brittle fracture is hopeless so this is the best we can do. The logic here seems muddy to me and I urge the authors to give this further thought. Towards that end it important to keep in mind that the goal of most studies of platform attributes is not to create model of fracture mechanics but rather to find correlations that would allow for the prediction of the morphology of incomplete flakes.

My sense is that the authors’ have not quite identified what it is that they are actually doing in their study. They have definitively not determined a chain of causal factors controlling fracture in brittle solids. Such models are well published in the scientific literature and they do not look anything like what is presented here. If I hazard a guess, I think what interests these authors, and what interests me as well, is not the actual physics of fracture mechanics but rather the visually accessible attributes that would be available to a knapper attempting to control the attributes of knapped flakes. Thus their work is focused not on the fracture mechanics themselves (a process that takes place at the atomic and molecular scale) but rather the cues that would be available to a knapper in the process of flake production. In that framework the data presented here makes sense as the causal chain would relate to the knapper’s inference of a causal chain of related attributes.

I hope these comments are constructive and that the authors will consider thinking about the underlying structure of their inquiry. My sense is that they are trying to get at something, and have produced relevant data, that is important but that they have not clarified what their goals actually are.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

The mediating effect of platform width on the size and shape of stone flakes

PONE-D-21-21600R2

Dear Dr. Lin,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Peter F. Biehl, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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